The Business of YouTube

A weekly strategic lens for senior leaders into how YouTube is reshaping the business of technology, sports, music, entertainment, and culture.

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To your favourite newsletter, The Business of YouTube, brought to you by Paola Marinone and Bengü Atamer, founders of BuzzMyVideos and previously at YouTube and Google. We are bringing our exclusive insights from 20 years of experience leading strategy at YouTube and Google.

Special Edition: The Event Trap: Why Sports Brands are Crashing in the Off-Season

Hey everyone, it’s Bengu & Paola here. In this edition, we are joined by Jo Redfern, a senior leader in digital media, youth audience and revenue growth and self-confessed Roblox obsessive!

Together, we are comparing notes across two of the most influential digital ecosystems; Roblox vs. YouTube, two platforms that combined, attract billions of hours and dollars of attention from Gen Z and A across the planet. We're discussing one critical question facing sports execs...

Why does your audience disappear the moment the whistle blows?

For years, the "Broadcast Mindset" has dictated sports strategy: build hype for the big event, capture the eyeballs, and move on.

But in 2026, the data shows that this approach is creating an "Audience Cliff" that is costing leagues millions in potential lifetime value - and future sustainability of the business.

The Roblox Reality: The NFL Universe Collapse

Analysis by Jo Redfern

The promise of Roblox for major IP like the NFL was simple: "Build a persistent world where fans engage year-round." And the NFL were smart, they partnered with an existing successful NFL based experience that had already amassed millions of visits, and they rebranded it. But there's something interesting happening in the first three months of 2026 that shows the challenges that an established league faces when working on UGC platforms like Roblox - it appears that NFL Universe Football is caught in the Event Trap.

Between January and early March 2026, the game tracked the NFL calendar with precision - and then it fell off a cliff.

• The Data: In January, the game maintained a 7-day average of ~13,000 concurrent users (CCU). By mid-March, that number plummeted to 6,131 CCU—a 49.5% decline.

• The Symptom: The game cycled through seven distinct event tags (Playoffs, Divisional, Super Bowl, etc.). Each created a spike, followed by a deeper trough.

• The Verdict: The NFL treated Roblox as a digital billboard for a physical product. When the "billboard" (the live season) stopped changing its ads in March, the players stopped looking at the sign. The license is functioning as a megaphone, not a retention engine.

The YouTube Parallel: High-Stakes Spikes vs. Perpetual Playlists

The "Event Trap" isn't exclusive to gaming; it is ravaging official league channels on YouTube.

While the NFL "owns" the Super Bowl, the data proves they don't "own" the fan’s daily habit once the trophy is hoisted.

2026 Retention Deep Dive (Feb vs. March)

2026 Content Performance Comparison: The "Off-Season" Reality

Data source: Viewstats

• The League's Retention Crisis: The NFL channel demonstrates the most violent "Audience Cliff." By the first week of March, weekly viewership crashed from 194M to 28M. This confirms the theory that official channels are "News-led"—once the games stop, the audience utility vanishes.

• The Jesser Paradox: Jesser actually saw higher weekly views in the first week of March (98.2M) than he did during his February peak (95.3M). This is the gold standard for "Platform-Native" strategy; he is not tied to the whistle, meaning he captures the audience that the NFL loses in the off-season.

• The Narrative Buffer: While Deestroying saw a significant drop in views post-February, his 90-day trend is still net positive (+4.4M views), whereas the NFL is in a deep deficit (-296M views). This suggests that creator-led narratives provide a much softer landing than broadcast-led highlights.

• Subscription vs. Attention: Interestingly, the NFL is the only entity gaining significant subscribers (+300K), while the creators are seeing "pruning" or stagnation. This suggests that while people follow the league for the brand, they consume the creators for daily entertainment.

According to YouTube’s 2026 Culture & Trends Report, 30% of NFL-related views now happen in the off-season. However, the vast majority of that "bridge" content is generated by fans and creators, not the league.

The league provides the ingredients (footage), but the creators provide the meal that keeps people fed year-round.

Why the "Event Trap" is a losing game

The disparity between the NFL’s crash and a creator’s soft landing or growth comes down to two strategic failures:

1. News vs. Narrative: Official channels and games are built on News. When there are no games, the utility vanishes. Creators build on Narrative (challenges, 1v1s, personality). Narrative doesn't have an off-season.

2. The Utility Gap: In March 2026, searches for "NFL Highlights" dropped, while searches for "Football Challenges" and "7-on-7" (creator-led formats) stayed within their yearly average or even had spikes!

   

   Google Search Trends

The Insight: When the live game ends, the league has nothing left to distribute. The creator, however, still has a destination to maintain.

Jo Redfern & Bengu & Paola

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Winning on YouTube in 2026: Growth Strategies for The Sport Industry

RESERVE YOUR SEAT AT OUT UPCOMING WORKSHOP

Tuesday, Mar 24 from 3:30 pm to 4 pm GMT

The Future of Sports Growth is Happening on YouTube. Learn how CMOs and Digital Leaders in Sport Are Scaling Reach and Revenue

The Business of YouTube - Job Board 📈

We have curated what is open and available in the market, and who is hiring!

Happy job hunting!

Social and Digital Lead at BUZZ 16 (London)

Social Media Lead at Synthesia (London)

Product Activation Manager, Partner Sales at YouTube (London)

Original Programming Lead, Apple Sports at Apple (New York)

Short-form Video & Social, Community Comms at Stripe (New York)

Athlete Manager, TikTok Operations at TikTok (New York)

If you have a senior YouTube/Video/Social Media/Content opening, and you want us to add it to our Job Board, please write to us at [email protected] or [email protected].

Watch the latest The Business of YouTube Podcast

What are the best opportunities for growth in Sport, when you look it from an innovation point of view? Learn from the expert in the room: Alfonso Becerra Cid

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